Tuesday, June 26, 2012

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Tuesday brought more positive healing for a 24-year-old battling flesh-eating bacteria.

Aimee Copeland was able to leave her hospital bed for the first time in 49 days, according to her father's blog.

Andy Copeland, Aimee's father, describes her progress from where she was a week ago as "night is to day." He says a week ago, Aimee was suffering from pain in at least eight parts of her body, but the pain is now concentrated in her abdomen, the donor site of her muscle flap.

She was helped by her physical therapist into a wheelchair and spent an hour being pushed around the hospital by her mother and father. Aimee was able to rest under the trees for some time and enjoy the outdoors.

Nature therapy, according to Copeland's father, was the basis of his daughter's master's thesis as a graduate student in psychology.

When her father asked her about her thoughts and feelings on the last 49 days, she responded: "I am blessed to have the opportunity to experience something that not many other people have the chance to experience. I am blessed to be able to have a challenge that not many others get to have. I am blessed to have the capacity to share my experience with others and have a chance to improve the quality of someone else’s life. I’m blessed to be different.”

Copeland's father asks that you continue to donate blood at the Shepeard Community Center.

There will also be a Dance For a Miracle -- 2 Hour Zumbathon Fitness Fundraiser on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at Snellville United Methodist Church. Registration is from 9:30 to 10 a.m. and all of the proceeds will go toward the Aimee Copeland Fund.

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